If there was any question as to Sebastian Thrun and Udacity’s resolve to re-imagine higher education in a more affordable, accessible virtual classroom — or their ability to actually make any real headway among the Ivory Towers of academia — we should probably just go ahead and put that to bed. This morning, Udacity continues to push forward with its plans to bring higher education online — and not just in bits, pieces and homework assignments. Following 2U’s lead, which set the ball rolling by pioneering the approach of partnering with graduate programs to go beyond asynchronous video learning to create custom, accredited full-service web and mobile-compatible graduate degree programs.

To date, 2U has worked with graduate programs in nursing, education, law, business and international, and today, Udacity took the next step — in what could mark an important moment for STEM education — announcing that it has partnered with Georgia Tech to jointly offer an accredited master’s degree in computer science, completely online. Not only that, but thanks to support from AT&T, the program will be offered for less than $7,000. So, really, this could be not just an important moment for STEM, but for MOOCs and online education as a whole.

The other point of note here is that Georgia Tech ain’t no safety school. According to U.S. News’ rankings of the best engineering schools in the U.S., Georgia Tech is tied for fifth place with Carnegie Mellon. So, it looks like Coursera and EdX aren’t the only ones providing online educational experiences with content from elite universities.

Furthermore, tuition (full-time, out of state) for Georgia Tech is $26,860 — which makes Udacity’s online degree look more than a little appealing in comparison. However, while anyone will be able to sign up and take Udacity’s Computer Science courses for free, only those actually enrolled at Georgia Tech will be able to earn credits towards a degree. The companies plan to launch a pilot of the program in the fall of 2014, beginning with a couple hundred students.

As for AT&T, it’s not exactly crystal clear what the company’s role in the partnership is, other than providing what the announcement calls “generous” support. Naturally, of course, AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson thinks the partnership has transformative potential. He said:

We believe that high-quality and 100 percent online degrees can be on par with degrees received in traditional on-campus settings, and that this program could be a blueprint for helping the United States address the shortage of people with STEM degrees, as well as exponentially expand access to computer science education for students around the world.

Again, while the idea itself isn’t new, and Udacity isn’t the first to partner with an elite graduate program to provide quality education and an actual, graduate-level degree to students online, the quality of the academic program (and presumably its content), its focus on Computer Science, combined with its relative affordability and the ability to receive credit and complete a full, graduate-level degree online, is absolutely huge. Sure, the launch is still quite a ways off, which is at once makes the announcement perhaps a little bit premature, but is also evidence that they’re taking the development of this program seriously. No status quo.

This is also refreshing news, because, over the last year, there’s been a huge amount of buzz around massive open online course (MOOC) platforms, particularly around Udacity, Coursera, EdX and 2U, among a few others. With how much play MOOCs have gotten in education and in the media, it’s as if MOOCs are expected to employ some kind of techno-voodoo magic to totally “save” higher education from collapsing under its own weight.

Of course, since online courses are far from being new, some questioned just how innovative, effective (and collaborative) MOOC platforms actually are at the end of the day. And for good reason. Porting a lecture hall to YouTube or putting your professor in a Google Hangout probably won’t end higher education. At least, not on its own.

Is accessibility important? Yes, of course. But even in the traditionally offline world of higher education, “scalable” and “cloud” can only act as stand-ins for real “innovation” for so long before schools will want to see more. There still needs to be substantial proof that MOOC platforms offer a better learning experience (improve outcomes and retention rates), before higher ed simply turns over the keys to the kingdom.

Reservations aside, what Thrun and Udacity have done in a relatively short amount of time is impressive and everyone — not just teachers — should be keeping tabs. In January, Udacity already played a part in a potentially key symbolic moment for higher ed, as California Governor Jerry Brown approved a partnership with San Jose State University to create Udacity-powered, low-cost and lower-division online classes.

This was significant because it was really the first time a MOOC platform has been tapped to build a complete, automated (remedial) class experience online — let alone state-wide at the largest university system in the world.

As of April, the pilot had seen 85 percent retention going into midterms. At time time, EdSurge noted that it’s not the 100 percent retention rate Thrun has boasted about previously, but it’s not a bad start.

In the big picture, it may not seem important, but retention rates are critical for online courses and course platforms. If entire remedial classes are being automated/flipped, they need to be more effective than their offline counterparts. (Un)fortunately, our current education system has set the bar pretty low on this one, which will hopefully make it easy to leap over it.

But, on the other hand, universities have limited resources, and class sizes continue to grow as more and more people go (or return) to universities, community colleges and continuing education programs. Online platforms take the scale issue out of the equation, but droves of students now matriculate with little to no grasp of fundamental concepts, San Jose State Provost and Vice President Ellen Junn told TechCrunch in January.

If technology and online education are going to truly transform education, maintaining the status quo isn’t acceptable, especially if these automated courses replace or curb the need for real, live human teachers. So, not to be party pooper or anything, but while this program has significant implications, it’s still all about quality content/presentation, improving retention, outcomes and ye olde learning experience. Without that, scale and affordability don’t mean quite as much.

Find Georgia Tech’s announcement here and Sebastian’s blog post here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

PayPal today announced Cash for Registers to encourage merchants to switch to PayPal-powered point-of-sale solutions. The program is part of the payment giant’s bid to be the kingpin among local merchants looking for lower-cost ways of accepting credit card payments. The announcement comes on the same day that Square launched Stand to complement its Square register product on iPad tablets and Groupon expanded and rebranded its mobile point-of-sale solution as Breadcrumb.

In exchange for local retailers handing in their “dusty old cash registers” for PayPal’s services, the eBay-owned company is offering to waive credit, debit, check and PayPal-processing fees for the remainder of 2013 as well as free advertising for participating merchants in the process. As with the offerings launched today by PayPal’s two competitors, this offer is only valid in the U.S. for now.

David Marcus, the president of PayPal who has been the driver of the company’s push into mobile commerce, noted that the program begins in June when the company will reveal more details on the exact terms of the offer, such as whether there will be a cap on how much can be processed with no fee this year. Although PayPal Here is probably best known as one of the many services out there that uses a dongle attached to a smartphone to turn it into a card reader, the company is pushing deeper into the market by offering a bigger suite of services and devices to run them — much like Square and Groupon announced today.

In PayPal’s case, this includes a merchant app for iPad, an iPad stand, a cash drawer and printer. Part of the program will also involve PayPal promoting the sale of these products, which are made by a number of companies including Erply, Leaf, NCR, ShopKeep and others.

In fact, perhaps as a swipe at rivals like Square, Marcus plays up the fact that PayPal itself is not driving most of the hardware developments itself: “At PayPal we’ve spent a long time listening to small businesses and retailers of all sizes, and we came to the conclusion that no one company can cater to the needs of all industries,” he notes in a blog post. “That’s why we have handpicked select partners that are each best-in-class in their respective categories.”

Marcus notes that there will be more PayPal Here hardware partners announced soon.

On top of the free processing fees, PayPal is also offering another lure to merchants: free marketing to the company’s 55-million-plus U.S. customer base, noting which places local to them are PayPal- and Here-ready (presumably via the PayPal app). This is not unlike the Square Directory that Square has been offering to consumers as it pushes further into Foursquare territory as the platform for local search.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

As a fourth generation venture investor, Adam Draper was pretty much predestined to work with startups. The son of Tim Draper, the founder of global VC firm Draper Fisher Jurveston, Adam has made it his mission to do everything in his power to help entrepreneurs bring their ideas to life — without relying on his family name to do so. After taking the plunge as an entrepreneur himself, co-founding a capital raising and trading platform and an equity crowdfunding portal, the 26-year-old again finds himself back in the Draper wheelhouse: Early-stage finance.

In the summer of 2012, Draper launched his third venture, Boost.vc, a San Mateo-based accelerator that offers housing (in an on-site hotel), office space, mentorship and seed funding as part of its 12-week incubation program. But by today’s standards, considering the glut of startup accelerators that have emerged over the last two years, what was once an attractive model now almost sounds run-of-the-mill. I’d argue, and Draper would agree, that accelerators can provide more value for startups over the long-run by focusing on a particular vertical.

Today, Boost.vc is taking its first (experimental) step in that direction by focusing on one of the hottest verticals in the tech industry: Bitcoin. About three months ago, the decentralized, ungoverned currency became “an obsession,” Draper says, and since then, it’s been the focus of his blog, meetings and now, in part, his accelerator. Boost.vc will be dedicating half of its second batch (seven startups total) to companies building products and technologies around the Bitcoin ecosystem.

When it comes to Bitcoin, Draper unabashedly wears rose-colored glasses, calling Bitcoin “one of the most exciting innovations happening in the world today.” While the kind of endorsement might give some pause, Draper isn’t alone. Last month, Lightspeed Venture Partners’ Jeremy Liew penned a post for TechCrunch explaining why VCs “love the Bitcoin market.” Liew himself has been a champion of Bitcoin and its incarnations, having recently backed OpenCoin, the developer of open source payment protocol, Ripple, for example.

Now Liew and other VCs are ready to ante up and continue to put their money where their mouths are by helping to establish the “Boost Bitcoin Fund.” The Fund, Draper exaplins, is a follow-on or “start” fund for all Bitcoin companies that graduate from the accelerator program. Each of the fifteen companies in Boost’s cohorts receives $15K in seed capital (in exchange for a 5 percent equity stake), but with the new fund, Bitcoin startups will receive an additional $50K investment upon completing the program.

The fund is anchored by Lightspeed, Rothenberg Ventures, The Bitcoin Opportunity Fund and Beluga founder Ben Davenport, all of which have begun to invest more aggressively in Bitcoin startups. Draper says that the team began to toy with the idea of a follow-on fund when the founders decided to accept seven Bitcoin startups into its summer session.

In floating the idea for a Bitcoin Start Fund to the investment community, the team was surprised by the warm reception that followed. In fact, Draper says, the capital came together in a week. With the Bitcoin movement continuing to gain steam, both entrepreneurs and investors are eagerly jumping into the space and testing new ideas in hopes of finding business models that will stick.

True to form, Draper says that the Boost.vc team is fully “committed to pushing Bitcoin toward becoming the next digital frontier.” Even if, as part of that experiment, the eight startups not focused on Bitcoin have to look on with envy as the other half of their cohort pockets an additional $50K at the end of the program.

Not only that, but as part of moving to commit (half of) itself to the vertical, Boost.vc will be bringing in “a number of Bitcoin-focused mentors,” including Davenport, who has recently dedicated himself to the space, along with additional speakers, experts and investors.

As a testament to the growing interest in the Bitcoin market, the digital currency now has its own conference, Bitcoin 2013, which is scheduled to take place this weekend in San Jose. Naturally, the conference will also play host to a Bitcoin-focused hackathon, and Draper tells us that Boost.vc plans to pick one of the seven startups that will participate in its program from the field.

As to the program: Applications for Boost.vc’s second cohort are being accepted on a rolling basis, with a final deadline of June 1st. The program will kick off June 24th, concluding in a demo day in the middle of September (the date has yet to be set). Those interested in applying can do so here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

BitTorrent, the once-notorious file sharing service that has been repositioning itself as a legit platform for those in digital media to distribute and collaborate on their content to 170 million users, is taking a step to attract more media startups to its platform. Today, it is launching BitTorrent Acceleration, opening up its lab to startups working in sound, film, live streaming, media sharing, and peer-to-peer technologies. And it will offer marketing and product assistance, user testing services, and in some cases investment and acquisition opportunities.

BitTorrent is not specifying how much it would typically invest in a company in the program, or how likely it would be that it might lead to BitTorrent (or someone else) buying it outright.

“The valuation will be on a case by case basis, based on the stage of the product and what’s best for them. In some cases a long lasting partnership is a better fit than an acquisition,” said Farid Fadaie, director of product development, content initiatives.

Unlike other accelerator programs, BitTorrent will focus on companies for the program that are beyond their earliest stages, and that BitTorrent feels would be good fits for the platform.

“The purpose of this program is to accelerate the growth of companies who already have some traction. We will make our resources available to companies who have the potential to be attractive to our user base,” Fadaie added.

BitTorrent’s Acceleration Program comes on the heels of a number of product launches from the company — all aimed at encouraging more use of its platform.

They have included yesterday’s launch of Sync, an anonymous-style Dropbox competitor; Surf to speed up downloads in browsers (and promote specific content in the process); SoShare for sending extra-large files; and BitTorrent Bundles packaging content together to boost wider product launches (these have been used by authors like Tim Ferriss pushing new books and musicians promoting new albums).

But while these services are already free to use, the accelerator is perhaps the first example of where BitTorrent is actually proposing to put money into getting more interesting content on board, part of its bid to “create a more sustainable distribution model for the Internet’s creators and fans.”

It looks like BitTorrent may also be tapping into the services of some of those already using the platform. “We have some of the best talent in the industry already tackling these areas. This will be an opportunity to gain valuable feedback and input,” a spokesperson added.

One of the promises of the accelerator program is for “advertising and product placement within the BitTorrent ecosystem.” Part of that may have to do with the BitTorrent Bundle offering, which will include some extra content along with whatever a user downloads.

In addition to that, BitTorrent’s search provides a recommendation engine for users to discover content similar to what they’re already downloading on the site.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Apple now has $145 billion in cash and it needs to do something about it. That’s why Apple CEO Tim Cook just announced during the earnings call that the company will initiate a stock buyback. It means that Apple will use part of its cash to repurchase existing shares, taking them out of the market, increasing existing stockholders’ shares. That investment will go directly to existing investors in the form of a dividend.

Tim Cook announced this program just after reiterating that Apple’s culture is what sets the company apart.

“We have a tremendous culture of innovation,” Cook said. “It’s the same culture that bought the iPhone and the iPad,” he continued.

Last year, Apple announced that it would spend $45 billion over multiple years to hand out as dividends. It is more than doubling this program to $100 billion by the end of 2015. The $55 billion that were set aside today will be used for the share repurchases as well as dividends.

The advantage of a share buyback program is that Apple shows that it is a confident company because it is decreasing the number of shares outstanding. Those programs usually boost the stock. A few days ago, Apple shares dropped below $400 after trading at $700 in September 2012. It represents a stark downturn and something that should slightly worry Apple.

The board has increased the share buyback authorization to $60 billion compared to $10 billion last year. It is the largest share buyback authorization of a public company. The quarterly dividend will be increased as wellfrom $2.65 to $3.05. Apple will pay around $11 billion in dividend every year.

Overall, Apple will hand out $30 billion every year. But what is even more impressive is that the company still expects its cash on hand to grow.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

We’ve seen a lot lately of car companies sidling up the technology world and vice versa. Consider Ford’s Open Developer Program for instance. But today, three big companies get involved in startups, one of them being the huge Mercedes-Benz. It, along with industrial giant Bosch and insurance company HDI, are partnering with tech accelerator Startupbootcamp in Berlin to create a new kind of accelerator vehicle called SBC2go.

This new project will support a selection of start-ups in a 3 month program open to any startup team globally. Ten teams will be selected and given €15,000 investment, free office space and support and access to a global network of mentors. Given the nature of the partners, the program focus areas are Mobility, Connectivity, and Big Data. The idea, they say, is to tap into the innovation driven by early stage, nimble start-ups which are normally below the radar of global companies.

With Mercedes-Benz, Daimler has a number of initiatives already such as the car sharing service car2go which has over 7,000 vehicles in 18 cities on the road in Europe and North America.

Dr. Frank Spennemann from Daimler lab and Mercedes-Benz says partnering with Startupbootcamp Berlin will “accelerate our access to innovation and will plug us into an impressive community of alumni, mentors and investors. At the same time we support start-ups in developing business ideas and increase their market value. Due to our global presence we can open doors to new markets.”

HDI is part of the Talanx Group, one of the major insurance groups in Germany and Europe with premium income of €26.7 billion (2012) and more than 22,000 employees. Its interest in the project stems from its stake in insurance concepts based on telematics – so think cars, insurance and big data and you’ll get the drift. Gerhard Frieg there says “Mobility, connectivity and big data are a top priority in this environment and that’s why we’re partnering with Startupbootcamp.”

Robert Bosch Venture Capital has invested in 14 start-ups since it was established in 2008 and Bosch itself has invested about €50 billion in its own research and development over the last 20 years. As you can imagine SBC2go is a little more affordable.

Dr. Claus Schmidt there will partner on the programme. He says software development for the interconnection of devices and systems is now a “focal point of research and advanced engineering work at Bosch. The internet of things and services gives rise to a large number of new business models, which will form a network of extremely diverse services. Bosch intends to exploit this potential for growth.”

Startupbootcamp Berlin is led by Alex Farcet, who co-founded Startupbootcamp and launched its initial program in Copenhagen in 2010. Farcet says part of the deal will be do do with the huge global reach of these companies: “This is a game changer for the Berlin program. We now have the resources and global reach to have an impact on innovation in the fields of Connectivity, Mobility and Big Data. Collectively Mercedes-Benz, HDI and Bosch have well over 10,000,000 likes on Facebook, and they have passionate followers who care deeply about their products.”

Applications for Startupbootcamp Berlin are open until June 2, 2013. Start-up teams can apply here and the program runs from August to October and concludes with an Investor Demo Day.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

CodeNow, a nonprofit program that teaches coding basics to high schoolers (with an emphasis on reaching girls, ethnic minorities, and other underrepresented groups), is in the middle of a significant expansion.

After launching in Washington, D.C., in 2011, the program has now launched in New York City and is currently holding training sessions with its first NYC group. In a few months, it’s going to select participants in its first fellowship program, which will take place over the summer. And later this year it plans to launch in San Francisco.

CodeNow’s curriculum uses tools like Hackety Hack (for programming basics) and Lego MindStorms (for robotics). It involves a combination of weekend sessions and online coursework, as well as a boot camp (held over the longer school breaks or on consecutive weekends) with “intensive training” in Ruby.

One goal of the program is to turn students into programmers. Founder and executive director Ryan Seashore said that of the 10 alumni who have now graduated from high school, three have gone on to study computer science. At the same time, he said that the program has benefits “even if a kid never writes a line of code after our program.” That’s because they’ll have training in how to “think logically” and are “no longer fearful of technology.”

Even though the program started (and will continue) in D.C., Seashore has moved to New York, and it sounds like he can be more ambitious with the NYC program, admitting more students, holding more classes, and launching the fellowship program.

“There was a real need and desire for a program in D.C. — the financial support was just harder to come by,” Seashore said.

Speaking of CodeNow’s fellowships, they will be awarded to the best students in the first two NYC cohorts, and they’ll include a full-time stipend for six weeks of software development training and work. Between their initial CodeNow training and the fellowship, Seashore said participants will receive “300 hours of in-person training,” and CodeNow will also try to connect them with internships at “awesome tech companies.”

I haven’t attended any of the sessions, but Seashore sent me a few of testimonials, just to give me a taste of the students’ enthusiasm. An 11th grader named Tahara said her “favorite part of the weekend was waking up for CodeNow.” Mamadou, a ninth grader, said, “My favorite part was attempting and writing codes to get the lights to turn on and off for the arduinos.”

When launching in NYC, Seashore said CodeNow received more than 250 applications, from which the team selected 13 girls and 12 boys. Seashore said CodeNow accepts applicants from all five boroughs of New York, and it provides subway cards to help the kids get to the training sessions in downtown Manhattan.

Interested NYC students can apply here. The deadline is Wednesday, April 17. Adults, meanwhile, can sign up to volunteer.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Programmer and CMU PhD Tom Murphy created a function to “beat” NES games by watching the score. When the computer did things that raised the score it would learn how to reproduce them again in again, resulting, ultimately, in what amounts to a Super Mario Brothers-playing robot. The program, called a “technique for automating NES games,” can take on nearly every NES game but it doesn’t always win.

You can read his full paper here but, as you can see from the above video (fast-forward to about 6 minutes to see Mario in action), the game does most of the things normal humans would do but consistently uses very difficult tricks to, say, attack two Goombas in rapid succession.

Murphy writes:

By giving the program a little bit of training – how to jump, what to grab – the program becomes a coin-hungry juggernaut, stomping turtles and taking no mushroom prisoners. Murphy ran a few other games through it, including Tetris, and found that the program would eventually just pause itself rather than continue playing and lose, a tactic shared by annoying, over-competitive cousins around the world since 1985.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Google just announced that it will send out invitations in the next few days to those who participated in its #ifihadglass campaign. Later this week, it will contact those who had the best ideas through Google+ and Twitter and invite them to purchase Glass for $1,500 and then pick up their devices at a number of events that the company is planning in San Francisco, New York and L.A. later this year. It’s not clear when exactly Google plans to ship these Glass Explorer Editions.

During I/O last year, Google allowed developers to pre-register for Glass, but it’s been very quiet about the program ever since. Given that it is about to make its selection for the #ifihadglass program public (and with the next I/O kicking off just a few weeks from now), chances are the company will also provide an update to these pre-registered developers soon.

For now, Google stressed in today’s Google+ post, the program is only open to individuals. “We also want to call out that we received great applications from businesses. At the moment, our Explorer Program is only for individuals. However, we are working on connecting with businesses in other ways,” the Google+ team writes.

@lavr_mvlno You’re invited to join our #glassexplorers program. Woohoo! Make sure to follow us – we’ll DM in the coming weeks.—
Project Glass (@projectglass) March 26, 2013

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Location analytics startup Placed is debuting a new monetization option for mobile devs today, via its Placed Affiliate program. The new system would see mobile apps request that their users opt-in to sharing their anonymized location data with Placed for market research purposes, in exchange for affiliate fees based on both a 7-day and 30-day volume measurement. The more quality location data shared by its users, the more an app stands to make through the program.

It’s similar to traditional affiliate marketing arrangements, with the difference that there’s no overt marketing, advertising or links that users need to click. Instead, they have to respond in the affirmative to a dialog box that pops up asking them their permission to share location data with Placed, after having approved an app to access location information to begin with. Obviously, that’s also a sensitive request, but Placed CEO and founder David Shim says it’s not as intimidating to users as you might expect.

“What we’ve found is that the opt-in rate actually seems to be pretty high,” he said. “Because a lot of these applications are already using location or they’re free apps, where a user knows there’s some kind of trade-off going on, and so a user says ‘Hey, I want to support the app,’ so we’ve measured about 30 million locations in the past day from our pilot pool of clients.”

Placed’s monetization option may have some potential downsides, but the positives might outweigh those for anyone looking at ways in which to monetize their existing free app without sacrificing anything in terms of the user experience. Placed’s new program requires only the initial setup, after which point users won’t even know it’s there.

“This is something brand new that doesn’t impact your in-app experience at all,” Shim said. And now you have another way to kind of monetize your user base, so it should help support the free app community.”

Another advantage for developers, according to Shim, is that even apps that don’t have sky-high engagement can participate, since they need only be opened every so often and don’t need to be kept open long to start earning affiliate revenue with Placed’s new program.

For customers of Placed’s analytics solution, the new data from affiliates will be used to provide comparables across a wider spectrum. That will mean that Placed customers won’t only be able to see how often their own app is used in specific locations, but also how that compares to average across their segment, or across different categories of apps. It’ll be available as a paid add-on to existing service for Placed customers once Placed makes more progress with the Affiliate beta program launching today.

Placed Affiliate is invite-only for the time being, but developers looking to try out this new monetization route can sign up to register their interest. If you do end up joining the program, we (and other TC readers) would be interested in hearing how it affects customer response to your product, as well as how it compares to alternate monetization options like displaying ads in terms of bringing in revenue.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch